ideologies in legally blonde

Legally blonde and the ideologies involved.Legally blonde is a film about Elle Woods a blonde sorority queen who is dumped by her boyfriend, she decides to follow him to law school to get him back and, once there, learns she has more legal savvy than she ever imagined and is thrown into solving a case in which she will make lots of friends and maybe even some enemies. The first thing I notice is that a common ideology used throughout the film is stereotypical ideology the main way this is used is through Elle’s character who is the stereotypical dumb blonde who only cares about fashion, boys and money. This is used to show how much the character can change by exaggerating all the things that are stereotypical about her for example she loves pink but to the point where everything about her life is pink like her clothes, her room even what she dresses her dog in. Furthermore she is shown to live in Malibu which is believed to be where all the rich famous people live so people will just assume that this is her life style. Another stereotypical ideology in the film is the way they represent lawyers and the law school they show them as being boring people who just wear suits and all come from wealthy backgrounds. Another ideology used throughout the film is patriarchal ideology which is the principal that the male is more superior. This is used when they talk about law school being mainly men or that when you watch different scenes the majority of the people are men. Furthermore they use this ideology in the scene when she first talks to Warner after they have both been excepted into Harvard, it is shown that he makes out to be more superior then Elle and doesn’t understand how a woman of her nature was able to get in. Even though this film is based around a female who takes on a role to achieve what she sets out to achieve it is still based around the idea that she is doing it all for the male and to impress a male so that she can become the typical wife figure and...

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...my arguments, not on my gender”. Lawyers are advocates of the law as well as advisors to their clients. Stereotypes are present in the law profession, and it is recognized as a man’s territory. LegallyBlonde, a film directed by Robert Luketic, reveals the generalizations made about a blonde sorority girl pursuing a career in law. Sex does not determine the quality of a lawyer; their knowledge, performance and representation of the law reflects a lawyer’s potential.
Gender discrimination exists in a lawyer’s world, and women are the victims. Women are affected in the legal career and academic world because of workplace expectations of masculinity and bias among male employers. People perceive information in ways that conform to their stereotypes. Gary Blasi presents two exercises that help display how people think about gender and career: First, “try to imagine, in sequence, a baseball player, a trial lawyer, a figure skater, and a U.S. Supreme Court justice - without a specific gender or race. . . .” Did you succeed? Next, “try to imagine a carpenter. When you have that image settled in your mind, describe the color of her hair.” Did you pause or do a double take? The purpose of these mental tasks is to prove that the mind views careers as gender specific. LegallyBlonde outlines the idea that women and men are divided as lawyers. Reese Witherspoon plays the role as an overly feminine...

...LegallyBlonde
In many ways today's society, even though women have come a long way, we still live in a patriarchal world. There are many examples of this in everyday life, whether it be that there aren't very many women CEO's or the mere fact that we've yet to have a woman president. No matter where you live, there is the presence of a male dominated world. It especially extends into the working fields. There are professions that are categorically women's' jobs like nursing, school teacher, or secretarial jobs. The rest of the professional world is mainly male dominated, i.e. engineering, CEO's of major companies, and Law Firms. Which brings us to the movie I picked to watch, LegallyBlonde?
In the movie LegallyBlonde the male dominance over the legal field is everywhere. This movie is based on a typical "good looking" girl. Reese Witherspoon's character Elle Woods is a tall, thin, blonde haired, blue eyes girl, the typical female in which society sees as perfect. Along with these things Elle also is rich, is in a sorority, and is portrayed as a "dumb blonde" with no common sense. The bulk of the movie is based around Elle going to Harvard Law School in hopes to impress her high society boyfriend. Throughout this movie the gender biases and the male dominance over the legal and field is so blatantly obvious you can't miss it.
The main reason I...

...Feminism in the LegallyBlonde Movie Duo
Hersey, Eleanor. "Love and Microphones: Romantic Comedy Heroines as Public Speakers." Journal of Popular Film & Television 34.4 (2007): 146-59. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 Apr. 2011.
Hersey’s article focuses on the heroines’ public speaking in Bridget Jones’s Diary, Never Been Kissed, Miss Congeniality, The Princess Diaries, and LegallyBlonde. Hersey addresses the feminist debate about whether or not romantic comedies like these are empowering to women or supporting the status quo. This article points out the trend change in the final scenes of romantic comedies: there are more public speaking scenes and less final kiss scenes. Hersey explains how public speaking is directly related to the heroines’ professional success, which is often played out in the sequels of the movies. Elle Woods’s graduation speech in LegallyBlonde shows that her professional life is the most important to her.
Lee, Felicia R., and Susan King. "Feminist Icon or Just Blonde?" The Age - Business, World & Breaking News | Melbourne, Australia. 3 Sept. 2003. Web. 17 Apr. 2011.
This article discusses the debate on whether Elle Woods is a feminist character, a post-feminist character, or a feminist character at all. It includes the opinions of experts on feminism and film, and also those of Reese Witherspoon, who plays Elle Woods in the film. It discusses...

...LegallyBlonde (2001), Directed by Robert Luketic , is a fun, light comedy about believing in yourself and never judging a book by its cover. Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) is portrayed as your stereotypical Californian girl - blonde hair, bubbly personality and a college major in fashion. When her boyfriend Warren dumps her to go to Harvard Law School, Elle decides the only way to get him back is to become a serious law student.
The movie relies heavily on the stereotype of being blonde, “Blondes are usually associated with both low intelligence and ability and high beauty and femininity.” (Bry. C, Follendant, A., Meyer, T., 2007)
Despite getting into Harvard, Elle is excluded from the study group after they tell her “It’s a smart people thing.” Her ex doubts Elle’s abilities to which she replies “did we not just get into the same law school.”Throughout the movie she is constantly judged based on her appearance and friendly personality.
The soundtrack is expected for such a light-hearted film consisting of pop songs including the opening and closing track Perfect Day (Hoku). This song is played to images of blonde hair, manicured nails and groups of sorority students having fun which sets the overall tone of the movie.
Luketic uses many close up shots which mean the audience has to rely heavily on facial expressions over physical movement. This framing works well with the type of...

...SYNOPSIS
Elle Woods, the sorority president majors in fashion merchandising is really in love with her boyfriend, Warner Huntington III, who will attend Harvard Law School the following year. When Warner asks her to dinner at their special place, she assumes he's going to pop the question, but instead, he dumps her saying that she is “too blonde” and not “serious” enough for his future political career. So, when Warner packs up for Harvard Law and reunites with an old sweetheart from prep school, Vivian Kensington, Elle rallies all her resources and gets into Harvard, determined to win him back.
However, living in Harvard is not that easy for a pink blonde girl like Elle. Her classmates disapprove her because of her naiveté and the stereotype of dumb blonde girl. The only friend Elle makes is Paulette, a divorced manicurist. Elle later helps Paulette gain custody of her dog back from her ex-husband as well as seduce the delivery man on whom she has a crush.
After Vivian tricks Elle into attending a party in a costume, Elle has a discussion with Warner and realizes that he will never respect her. Determined to succeed on her own, Elle studies hard and wins an internship with Professor Callahan, as do Warner and Vivian. They work with Callahan and an associate, attorney Emmett Richmond, to defend Brooke Taylor-Windham, a famous fitness instructor accused of murdering her much older billionaire husband, Hayworth Windham. Brooke...

...“LegallyBlonde” Analysis
Feminism has become the great issue in this modern era. The emerging of second wave feminism in the late 60s had bring a huge impact toward the position of women in the society. Women are free from the male values, while women have the equal rights in politic. Women also can quit from their domestic sphere. The movement of feminism still continues in the early 90s. The women’s movement experience a phase which the ideology of feminism had changed to be Third Wave Feminism. It is because the existence of poststructuralists, postmodern and postcolonial theories in that era. Third Wave Feminism focus on popular culture which has been construed as a form of post feminist backlash (Gillis and Munford ; p. 2 , 2003). As the consequence, many forms of third wave feminism are represented in the media as a form of popular culture, especially in movie. Movie is the best way to share the ideology or stereotype to the society. One of the movies which represent feminism is “LegallyBlonde” starred by Reese Witherspoon. This paper will analyze the movie and its correlation with the theory of Third Wave Feminism which is emphasize on Harvesting Woman Strength based on the Journal of International Women’s Studies by Stacy Gillis and Rebecca Munford. Besides, it will use some Foucault’s theory about feminism.
The story of this movie starts when Elle Woods (Reese...

...An Acting Critique of LegallyBlonde the Musical
On Friday night, May 3rd at & p.m., my mother and I attended the opening night of LegallyBlonde in the Buena P.A.C. I must begin by saying that I am slightly biased towards one of the actors who just so happens to be my sister, so the roles of Chutney, the girl who accidentally murdered her father, and a Delta Nu sister have never been played more perfectly in my eyes. While I found the play both amusing and enjoyable, there were some big issues as far as opening night goes. Things like lack of projection (on top of some serious microphone issues, which I cannot blame the actors for), actors forgetting lines, and sloppy blocking, especially in many of the dances during the musical numbers, all took away from the overall experience of the show. However, there were definitely some things I absolutely loved, which were mostly specific characters. Also, the quality of the singing in all the musical numbers was very high, which is something you don’t see often in a high school musical production. That being said, I thought it was worth my five dollars, and a great way for Buena to end its 2012-13 season.
Like I said before, technical aspects such as microphone malfunctions cannot be blamed on the actors. It is the job of the technicians to ensure all of the equipment functions properly. However, I believe that actors should not rely on such technical aspects alone to...

...Lee
Reel Research: Screen and Scholarship
3/11/2012
LegallyBlonde: Feminist Film Theory
Feminism is a movement that has had a great impact in the world of film, and how we interpret it. During the second wave of feminism that occurred throughout the United States, feminist scholars began developing and applying more theories, that arose during this movement, to the way they analyzed film. The various tactics and topics that are contained under the umbrella of feminist film theory are, but not limited to, sexism, female stereotypes, and gender discrimination. Though these are issues that were more prominent during the post world war II era, they are themes that are internalized in modern day movies. Robert Luketic's LegallyBlonde, is an archetypal example of a film that depicts the countless stereotypes created by society, a few being gender roles, blondes vs. brunettes, and the many stereotypes of women.
Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White's work, The Film Experience, states that the difference between the sexes is culturally internalized and valued. It might not be apparent, but parents establish these values while we are children. Girls are handed Barbie Dolls, play house, and are raised to believe that they should be the beautiful stay-at-home trophy wives. Boys on the other hand are taught to be aggressive and become the breadwinners of a family. This stereotype of gender roles is first...